Monday, June 20, 2011

Markus Jakobsson: why we must ask "why" in designing secure systems

On Wednesday (June 22 @ 12pm PDT), Markus Jakobsson will talk about some of the security research he's been working on. Join us to hear some stories and learn how and why to build in security from the ground up! Details below. This will be streamed to the world on air mozilla, and hosted at the Mozilla HQ in Mountain View.

Summary: Computer security has a tradition of responding to the symptoms of problems without taking the time to ask what the sources of the problems are. Markus will argue that this approach has made the user authentication experience frustrating and vulnerable; enabled phishing; and created a tremendous market for malware. Markus will give examples of some well-known approaches that were designed without a thorough understanding of the underlying problems and limitations, and how they could be redesigned and improved. In particular, he will cover web and app spoofing; mobile passwords; and bullet-proof detection of malware.